Disc Two of the KONG Collector's Edition DVD set opens with an hour-long documentary I'M KING KONG - THE EXPLOITS OF MERIAN C. COOPER, directed by Kevin Brownlow and Christopher Bird.  Created in association with Turner Classic Movies, this cable-made featurette still makes a handsome and insightful addition to the KONG DVD library.  Veteran biographical documentarian Brownlow and partner Bird treat viewers to an in-depth study of Cooper's fantastically, death-defying life and personality, from his Wright Brothers-era youth and maturing into a war hero and daring filmmaker.  The best summation of this featurette is given in an audio clip of Merian Cooper himself:

I was a little timid boy, put that on your tape if you want.  I made myself be a champion boxer, wrestler, and fought three successful wars.  I'm King Kong!

Born in 1893, as a child Cooper eagerly began his lifelong interests in airplanes (he was age 10 when the Wright Brothers first took to the sky), primitive tribes and "anything distant, difficult and dangerous."  Initially timid due to his undersized physique and self-described "fourth rate intelligence," Cooper engaged in a lifestyle of strenuous exercise, building up his body and emboldening his courage to conquer his world.

An Annapolis Naval Academy student in 1911, his enthusiasm for the power of flight — predicting airplanes would soon surpass the military might of warships — resulted in his forced resignation from the Academy.  It's an important turning point in Cooper's young life, because he spent most of his remaining years going to great, heroic and almost fatal lengths in his actions to make his father proud of him.  It's easy to see why Cooper ended up living his life on such a grandiose yet honorable scale, and applying that work ethic to his career and personal interests.

Cooper served as a bomber pilot in World War I, survived being shot down over France, then continued combat missions for Poland i the early 1920s to repel the Russian invasion.  Downed and captured by Russian troops, Cooper eventually escaped his prison camp to return to America and start his life over again. Indulging in his dreams to become an adventurous explorer, Cooper began a new career as documentarian, filming on exotic, far flung and wild locations.  In these exciting exploits he teams up with fellow cameraman Ernest Schoedsack, his future partner on such real-life documentaries like 1927's CHANG and the unfinished epic GRASS. Illustrating the harsh and astonishing drama of human and animal life in worlds strange to western eyes, truly set the stage for the creation of KING KONG, an adventure embarked upon by Cooper's own alter-ego, rough and tumble 'animal picture' director, Carl Denham.

Brownlow and Bird detail the troubled path of KONG's studio approval and production, in which Cooper and Schoedsack team up with special effects pioneer Willis O'Brien at the RKO studio.  Prominent fans of KONG in his 1933 premiere, including Ray Harryhausen, Bob Burns and Ray Bradbury, provide their own childhood tales of fascination with the Eighth Wonder of the World.  One key story told by Merian Cooper himself relates how he acted out many of Kong's gestures and action scenes, completing the direct personal and professional link between the mighty character Kong and the larger-than-life man who both made their indelible marks on cinema history.

I'M KING KONG completes Cooper's biography with his life as a father and family man, an early proponent of the three-strip Technicolor process, and his return to active military service in World War II. Toward the end of his career, Merian Cooper continued to excel in producing classic films like THE SEARCHERS, and innovate technical achievements like a spectacular new widescreen format, Cinerama, which debuted in September 1952.  This last showstopping achievement made a fitting finale in the career of a filmmaker who devoted his life and life's work to making himself and his films bigger, bolder and better than ever before. 

There is little doubt that the crown jewel of the Special Features treasure trove is the massive seven-part documentary, RKO PRODUCTION 601: THE MAKING OF KONG, a co-production of Warner Home Video and Peter Jackson's Wingnut Films.  Exhaustive in its revelation of detail about nearly every facet of KONG's pre-history, studio production and cinematic legacy, this epic in its own right offers plenty of exclusive photos, interviews and video clips to delight any fan.

Part One, THE ORIGINS OF KONG, reveals more details of Merian C. Cooper's early life and how his own adventures and partnership with Ernest Schoedsack led them both to make KONG.  The opening salvo of numerous filmmaker and cinema expert interviews throughout the documentary begin with film historian Rudy Behmer, animator Ray Harryhausen, and of course director/Kong-fanatic Peter Jackson.  Biographies of the two KONG-makers show how much of themselves and their lifestyles they put into alter-egos Carl Denham and Jack Driscoll.  Screenwriter Ruth Rose, wife of Schoedsack, also gets due credit for her important contributions in turning the Edgar Wallace story and James Creelman early script into the classic KONG screenplay.  

Part Two, WILLIS O'BRIEN AND CREATION, gives long overdue credit to the brilliant and often forgotten career history of KONG's innovative animator and visual effects creator.  From "Obi's" early stop-motion experiments which teamed him with Thomas Edison, to his groundbreaking pre-historic creatures in THE LOST WORLD, O'Brien was truly Kong waiting to happen.   What didn't happen was Willis O'Brien's expensive and incomplete film, CREATION, in which O'Brien developed many of the innovative techniques combining live-action plates with animated effects that put Kong on the screen.  Cooper, then in charge of reviewing RKO's production slate, cancelled CREATION but immediately hired O'Brien and his talented crew to begin work on KONG . . . and movie history was made.

Archival design sketches and four minutes of surviving test footage are narrated with a dramatic reading of the CREATION story concept to give KONG fans a rough idea what might have been, had the film been completed.  No doubt most fans will agree, even to Willis O'Brien's due credit, that American cinema is much richer for the presence of KING KONG, even at the cost of CREATION.

CAMERAS ROLL ON KONG, Part Three of the documentary, gets into a nuts-and-bolts examination of KONG's production, opening with the fascinating tale of how Cooper was shooting THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME during the day, and shooting his test reel for KONG after hours, even borrowing GAME actors Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong.  The two films also share the same jungle sets, redressed for subtle differences in appearance.  Also the lengthy, troubled process of writing the KONG script is revealed, even as the shooting schedule forced Cooper to cast the roles without a final draft.  Principal photography began in New York to capture the opening harbor sequences, then the crew moved back to Los Angeles to complete all the major soundstage filming at RKO.

Willis O'Brien and his team take center stage once again in Part Four, A MILESTONE IN VISUAL EFFECTS.  In order to deliver what Cooper wanted from Kong, O'Brien would have to invent new processes and refine existing techniques that were already 'cutting edge' at the time.  To KONG's glory and the detriment of Willis O'Brien's often unacknowledged genius, interviews tell how tightly RKO kept Kong's creation under wraps, even going so far as to distribute a deliberate misinformation campaign about how Kong would be a man in a gorilla suit.  Thus, few photographs of O'Brien and crew survive to illustrate how they created KONG's magic, as no behind-the-scenes film of the animation process were allowed.  So Peter Jackson and WETA's Richard Taylor treat fans to a simulated recreation of the laborious process endured to animate Kong and the creatures of Skull Island.

Part Five of the documentary, PASSION, SOUND AND FURY, cast a deserved spotlight on the amazing, groundbreaking soundtrack of KONG, created in tandem by sound effects designer Murray Spivak and score composer Max Steiner.  Cinematic milestone upon milestone arise from KONG's landmark existence, and Spivak's true invention of the art of sound design for feature films is given due prominence.  A wealth of interviews, included one with Spivak himself in his later years, study how he created an entire fantasy world from scratch.  Spivak marked another first by mixing his sound design to coordinate with and compliment Max Steiner's sprawling music score, instead of competing with it.  Steiner gets his own due, revealed as the father of what historians acknowledge today as the blueprint of the modern film score.  To rein in KONG's budget, RKO initially refused to pay Steiner to compose an original score, but both he and Cooper agreed that no existing music cue library could meet KONG's unique demands.  In 1932, Cooper personally gave Steiner the green light to begin composing his original score, which emphasized the emotional journey of the characters, and played a significant role in KONG's eventual success at the box office.

Part Six, THE MYSTERY OF THE LOST SPIDER PIT SEQUENCE, is an early Christmas gift to KONG fans and fanatics, as Peter Jackson, writer/director Frank Darabont, makeup wizard Rick Baker pour through their library of artwork to recreate the missing chasm scene, shot for KONG but cut for time and pacing by Cooper himself.  Then the WETA team of artists and animators actually shoot the sequence in stop-motion and live action to fill in the gaps where these monstrous attacks would have appeared in KONG.  PJ warns audience that his "exercise" is all in fun, and not intended to presume that's how Cooper and O'Brien would have done it, ending with his own fervent fan prayer that somewhere out there, concealed in a rusty film can hidden in a basement, the original, cut Spider Pit sequence will someday be found and restored to its rightful place.

The documentary concludes with KING KONG'S LEGACY, which wraps up all the interview participants' thoughts on what KONG means to film history, to their own careers, and to them personally.  KONG-inspired follow-up films, the hastily produced SON OF KONG, and the fondly regarded MIGHTY JOE YOUNG are also placed in their historical perspective, under KONG's long and towering shadow. 

The wealth of Disc Two bonus features is topped off with a presentation of the surviving CREATION test reel, with a studious commentary by stop-motion genius in his own right, Ray Harryhausen.  He gives a general overview of how CREATION might have progressed, interpreted from the existing footage, and how the discussed techniques eventually profited KING KONG's production instead.

Part 3 of our review shows you samples of the collectible items packed in the special edition tin, including poster art postcards, a recreation of the Grauman's Chinese KONG premiere program, and TWO MORE bonus DVDs...